The American historian dedicated a provocateur to try to demonstrate that the potato has changed the history of the world. The plant, domesticated in what Peru is doing today, was the main source of energy for the powerful Inca empire and then for the Spanish conquerors, who took that unknown superfiment to Europe around 1570. The social history of the potato is known, but its origin was an enigma so far. An international team of scientists announces a surprise on Thursday: the potato is the daughter of the tomato.
“We have finally resolved the mystery,” says the Chinese geneticist, leader of the research at the Shenzhen Agricultural Genomics Institute. His team has analyzed the intricate DNA of about 60 related species and has discovered that the potato originated about nine million years ago from a natural crossing in South America between a tomato bush and, a plant of appearance similar to the potato but without its characteristic edible tubers.
Huang and his colleagues underline that it was that genetic mixture that allowed the appearance of these underground thickening of the stems, which function as a nutrient warehouse of the plant and today are a basic food for people. A 170 grams potato provides, half of the daily amount of vitamin C and even four grams of proteins with all essential amino acids. Understanding the genetic ins and outs that control their size and their components is a key issue in world geopolitics, according to the thesis of historian William McNeill. That is why China has turned to the investigation of the potato.
The newly discovered kinship can be shocking for a person outside agriculture, according to the geneticist. “Maybe it surprises because the tomato and the potato that you buy in the supermarket are quite different. However, what we really eat are the fruits of the tomato and the underground tubers of the plant of the potato. It is normal for two different organs to have such a different appearance, but the plants themselves – their leaves and their flowers, for example – are similar,” Zhang reflects, the first signature of the study. The potato plant looks even more like that of Etuberosum, but genetic analyzes reveal that it is closer to the tomato. “We were surprised that the potato is a descendant of tomato,” says Zhang, also a member of the, a gigantic research center with 500 workers dependent on the Chinese government.
The authors underline that the innovative tuber, that is, the organ full of nutrients called potato, arose at a key moment, in full. Those new plants, endowed with underground thickening in their stems, were able to adapt to the coldest climates of the Andean mountains. They colonized various ecosystems and starred in an “explosive diversification”, in the words of Huang, Zhang and his colleagues. According to their figures, there are more than a hundred potato wild species. 10,000 years ago, the inhabitants of the Andes domesticated one of them and opened the way to the modern potato.
The Spanish biologist headed in 2011 the equipment that discovered the genetic switch that indicates to the plant when to produce tubers, depending on the hours of light :. The new study shows that this key gene proceeds, surprisingly, from the tomatoes. The mystery is what happens next, when, for example, the autumn sun activates the switch, emphasizes Prat, of the, in the Barcelona town of Cerdanyola del Vallès. “When the signal of forming tubers arrives, what happens in that underground stem so that it begins to swell and accumulate starch and proteins? We do not know it yet,” he says. “If we manage to understand the necessary gene kit, in the future we could make plants that produce grains and also tubers,” Prat continues. Potatoes and cereals on a single plant.
The Huang and Zhang team remember that hybrid potato and tomato plants have already been created. The researchers mention, signed by the Spanish geneticist, who died in 2023 at age 87. The scientist, from the Free University of Berlin, and two other colleagues managed to combine a Cherry tomato plant and another of potatoes, almost half a century ago. “The capacity exists. And now that we know that they are so so related, in the future we could have plants that give tomatoes and potatoes, but for that there is still, it is necessary to better understand the process,” says Prat.
Tubers could contribute energy to the next world empire. “China has turned to the potato 100% and will sweep us all. They have realized that it is an overproductive crop: with little land you collect many potatoes. For wheat, instead, you need huge fields. If we now improve the quality of potatoes, making, for example, that they have more proteins, it will be a superfood,” says Prat. China is already the largest world producer of potatoes, with a cultivated area of, equivalent to the area of entire countries, such as Costa Rica and Slovakia.
A dozen Chinese institutions have collaborated in the new study, which is published this Thursday. Other centers in Canada, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom have also participated. The authors appreciate the help of the Colombian scientist, who dedicated her doctorate at Imperial College in London to try to understand why the family of potatoes and tomatoes is so diverse and why some of its members colonizing different ecosystems on the planet. “The most interesting point is not so much when the group of potatoes originated, but how,” says Echeverría, which emphasizes that the development of tubers arose from a combination of genes from different lineages. If William McNeill was right and the story is repeated, who understands these enigmatic genetic entions of the potato will dominate the world.
